Purity of life is the highest and truest art.

When the artist ... intends from the beginning to be obscure and take obscurity as his objective or goal for its own sake and wishes to astonish, shock, and seem mysterious, that is a swindle.

True artistic renewal does not mean being stripped of fetters. It means moving into new fetters.

Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.

What is art? A violet. Is that all? An artistic style is a living entity, a continuous process of invention. It can never be imposed from without; born of the profoundest tendencies within a society, its direction is to a certain extent unpredictable, in much the same way as the eventual configuration of a tree's branches.

Art must take reality by surprise. It takes those moments which are for us merely a moment, plus a moment, plus another moment, and arbitrarily transforms them into a special series of moments held together by a major emotion.

What is carved should be original, and have life, for whatever may be the subject which is to be made, the form of it should resemble the original and the life of the original... . Take great care to penetrate what the animal you wish to imitate is like, and how its character and appearance can best be shown.

Art is in love with luck, and luck with art.

True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a verbatim translation.

There is no comfort in adversity More sweet than Art affords. The studious mind Poising in meditation, there is fixed, And sails beyond its troubles unperceiving.